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Speaker 1: I'm Charlie Pellot, and that's a Bloomberg Business flash. This
Speaker 1: is taking Stock with Kathleen Hayes and Pim Fox on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio Rule forty. Uh. Just another way if you
Speaker 1: read a lot of the information we read a day
Speaker 1: ahead of this interview, just one more way in which
Speaker 1: the International Olympic Committee gains and many of the athletes
Speaker 1: who go to the Olympics, having spent most of their
Speaker 1: lives getting ready for them, don't joining us now. As
Speaker 1: a man who is very close to this in in
Speaker 1: key ways, Jim Webber is the CEO of Brooks Running.
Speaker 1: It's a Berkshire Hathaway company founded in nineteen fourteen in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: headquartered in Seattle, now for more than twenty years, running
Speaker 1: shoes of all kinds, unique designs. You can buy them
Speaker 1: online in stores. But Jim's here to talk about the Olympics,
Speaker 1: where his company is sponsoring twelve athletes. Twelve Olympic athletes, Jim,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show. Thanks, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1: So how did you get in? I mean obvious, I
Speaker 1: guess it's an obvious thing to do to sponsor athletes
Speaker 1: if you make running shoes. Well, it's interesting because running
Speaker 1: is actually really unique among all sports because the soul
Speaker 1: of running is the sport. But but what's interesting is
Speaker 1: it becomes more than that. For us. It's a fitness, healthy,
Speaker 1: well lifestyle activity. So running transcends the sport. So we
Speaker 1: invest in the sport um really to inspire literally high
Speaker 1: school kids and younger runners to compete and begin moving
Speaker 1: because frankly, we know they'll they'll keep running on into
Speaker 1: old age. So the sport, I would say, is the
Speaker 1: soul of what we do. It's not the core of
Speaker 1: our business, but it's an investment um really in the
Speaker 1: sport and future runners. Now, I just want to mention
Speaker 1: that it doesn't involve you directly, but it does involve
Speaker 1: this issue of rule forty in the Olympics. Right Michael Phelps,
Speaker 1: who is I guess he's like the crown jewel of
Speaker 1: under armos Olympic athletes. Do you know that in the
Speaker 1: cover on the cover of the latest Sports Illustory magazine,
Speaker 1: do you know that he's wearing Nike sweatpants. And the
Speaker 1: reason that he's wearing Nike sweatpants is because Nike is
Speaker 1: the sponsor of the US team Team USA, and as
Speaker 1: part of the legal agreement, they are required as an
Speaker 1: Olympian to wear Nike for the sponsors. Now, the US
Speaker 1: Olympic Committee didn't really have a comment about this, but
Speaker 1: can you just explain what is going on here that
Speaker 1: athletes are sponsored by one company? The Olympic Committee might say, no,
Speaker 1: you've got to wear this because the team is sponsored
Speaker 1: by someone else. Explained the details. So there's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of history here too, right, because the Olympics started
Speaker 1: with amateur athletes and only in the last few decades
Speaker 1: has professionalism come into it. And that's a whole another topic.
Speaker 1: But in essence, there's no question or ambiguity at all
Speaker 1: that the Olympic Movement, the IOC and the U s
Speaker 1: o C owns the image and name of the athlete
Speaker 1: while they're on the team, the national team and competing,
Speaker 1: and so, uh, Michael Phelps does not have any rights
Speaker 1: to his image or his name during this period of
Speaker 1: the Olympics. It's it's managed through the U s o
Speaker 1: C and the IOC and UM. That's what Rule forty
Speaker 1: is all about. It restricts other commercial usage of the
Speaker 1: athletes name and image during this period of time by
Speaker 1: any of their sponsors or partners, but most importantly by
Speaker 1: the athlete themselves. Why why was this rural mate? Because
Speaker 1: I think the major sponsors at the international level and
Speaker 1: even at the governing body level for each sport, for
Speaker 1: USA track and field, for swim, for cycling, um, they
Speaker 1: have sponsors and those sponsors want exclusivity on these athletes
Speaker 1: image and name during this period of time, and that
Speaker 1: has impacts. And that's why you know, we're creating a
Speaker 1: social media campaign around this topic, really on behalf of athletes, because, um,
Speaker 1: this isn't basketball. I'm talking about running USA track and field,
Speaker 1: and it's not even an n C double a sport
Speaker 1: where each athlete is getting a two to three hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollar education. These people aren't getting paid at all.
Speaker 1: They have to they have to garner their own support,
Speaker 1: and most of them don't have a professional outlet as
Speaker 1: they do in the NBA or tennis or golf to
Speaker 1: make a living off of this. So for every Hussain
Speaker 1: Bolt or Michael Phelps, I think five hundred athletes UM
Speaker 1: that no one knows their name. They're not going to
Speaker 1: get on the podium. But this is the biggest moment
Speaker 1: of their life and UM they're being restricted on UM
Speaker 1: the use of their name and and and really you know,
Speaker 1: supporting the people that supported them. What you'll see now
Speaker 1: in the Olympics is some of the non sponsored athletes
Speaker 1: by the by the big brand that's sponsoring all of
Speaker 1: these teams and others. UM is you're going to see
Speaker 1: them put the shoes around their neck. Because the only
Speaker 1: piece of equipment that a track and field athlete has
Speaker 1: is their shoes. That's not too in swimming, the cap
Speaker 1: is a piece of equipment. It's not too in cycling,
Speaker 1: but in running, Uh, they can't say the name of
Speaker 1: their shoe sponsor, they can't show the brand in a
Speaker 1: commercial sense, but they can put the equipment around their neck.
Speaker 1: And that's the only thing they can do. Tell us
Speaker 1: about this partnership that you've got with Zappos and UM.
Speaker 1: Nick Simmons yep so, Nick is probably one of the
Speaker 1: most prolific voices for athletes right certainly in in track
Speaker 1: and field, and has been two time Olympian, two time
Speaker 1: Olympian eight runner and he was he was in fantastic
Speaker 1: shape and got injured, so unfortunately he couldn't compete at
Speaker 1: the trials this year and didn't make the team. But
Speaker 1: nonetheless he is on a mission to create more balance UM,
Speaker 1: both in terms of sharing UH the significant revenues at
Speaker 1: the international UH and and USOC committee levels to the
Speaker 1: athlete as well giving athletes control over their image UM
Speaker 1: and being able to put together sponsorship and support UM
Speaker 1: in their dream and in pursuit of this, of this,
Speaker 1: of the metal and so he's the biggest voice on that.
Speaker 1: So we're supporting him. Essentially, we're supporting him and this
Speaker 1: rule forty dot com effort was really about supporting his voice.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much for shutting light on all of this.
Speaker 1: Jim Webber is the chief executive of Brooks Running Theory
Speaker 1: Berkshire Hathaway, a company. They're based in Seattle. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to taking stockhm him Fox My co host
Speaker 1: Kathleen Hayes. This is Bloomberg coming up. Bloomberg Law. Brought
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